On the morning of June 2, 1913, W. A. Angle stepped outside the store that he ran about a mile south of Joplin just across the county line in Newton County and found a body lying in the road not far away. The dead man had a revolver lying beside him and a bullet hole in his breast. There was some suggestion at first that the death might have been a suicide, but the fact that the man had been shot in the back precluded such a likelihood. There were signs of a struggle, and found near the body was a woman's switch, a type of hair extension, which officers speculated had been lost during the scuffle. Two sets of footprints, apparently those of a man and a woman, led away from the body to another set of tracks made by a buggy. Authorities thought, therefore, that a man and a woman had been involved in the killing, but little else was known at first. One window of Angle's store had been broken, indicating that some sort of robbery attempt had occurred, and both Mr. Angle and his wife had heard a shot during the night.
At an inquest held by the Newton County coroner later the same day, the dead man was identified as George Kellem (aka Frank Dunbar) of Pittsburg, Kansas. The fact that Kellem had served a prison term in Kansas for burglary supported the theory that there had been an attempt to rob Angle's store. Kellem's wife, Pinie, was located and called to testify. She had been staying with her father in Newton County, and she said the last time she saw her husband was when he left about 1 a.m. to return to Joplin. She said her husband was carrying a revolver belonging to a man named Downing when she separated from him and that he had gone to look for Downing.
Later, however, Kellem's father testified that his son and Pinie argued the previous week when they were at his house in Pittsburg and that she had said to the younger Kellem, "Wait until we reach Joplin and you'll get your dose."
By this time, Pinie had left, but she was soon relocated and arrested on suspicion. She admitted arguing with her husband but denied any involvement in the crime and tried to implicate a man and a woman who had supposedly left the area for Oklahoma on the night of the killing. Nonetheless, she was held for a preliminary hearing, which took place on June 17. At the examination, the state presented evidence that Pinie not only had argued with Kellem but had pointed a revolver at him and threatened him on more than one occasion. She was supposedly jealous because of attentions Kellem was paying to a woman named "Big Mary." Pinie was charged with second-degree murder, reduced from a first-degree charge, and released on $1,000 bond pending the action of a grand jury. John Downing (the man Pinie had implicated) was charged as an accessory to the crime, but he had not yet been apprehended.
The grand jury failed to indict Pinie when her case came up in the fall of 1913, and she was released. However, some new evidence, including the fact that George Kellem was not really Pinie's husband, turned up in the spring of 1914. Pinie was located living in Webb City with her real husband, Louis Peckham, and both of them were arrested.
The husband was soon released, but a charge of murder was refiled against Pinie Peckham. At her trial in June at Neosho, testimony revealed that, at the time of the crime, Pinie had left Peckham and gone to live with George Kellem. She was variously known as Pinie Peckham, Pinie Kellem, or Pinie Dunbar, and her maiden name was Tutsinger. She was described as a small woman about 25 years old with black hair and eyes. Despite her infidelity, her husband seemed to be "very devoted to her," according to the Neosho Times.
On the day before the crime, Pinie and Kellem had traveled from Pittsburg to her father's home south of Joplin. Pinie had threatened to kill Kellem, and Kellem had gotten possession of her revolver and taken out the ammunition for fear that she would carry out the threat. Pinie, however, got possession of Kellem's own revolver and put it in her purse. The idea of robbing Angle's store was thought to have been a mere frame-up as a way of getting Kellem out on the road so Pinie could kill him. It was thought that Pinie had one or more accomplices in the scheme but that she was the one who did the actual shooting. Her husband, Peckham, was released, and no one else was charged in the crime.
The trial ended at noon on June 9, and the jury deliberated until after dark, when they returned a verdict of guilty of second-degree murder. It was reported that ten jurors initially favored acquittal but they eventually agreed to the guilty verdict on the condition that they would recommend that the defendant be released on probation and given a chance at reform. By the time they learned that a recommendation for parole had to go to the State Board of Pardons, the judge had already sentenced Mrs. Peckham to ten years in the penitentiary. Pinie became the first woman ever convicted of murder in Newton County and, according to the Times, "probably the first ever tried on that charge."
Pinie's lawyers filed a motion for a new trial, but it was overruled, and she was transported to Jefferson City on June 13. Her sentence was commuted by the governor on September 25, 1917, after she had served barely over three years of her sentence.
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